Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” is a television show about a girl, Buffy Summers, played by actress Sarah Michelle Gellarhttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001264/, who runs into a number of supernatural events throughout her life. I will be focusing on one particular episode which we touched on in class. The episode “Welcome to Hellmouth,” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452716/ is in the beginning of the season and Buffy is just starting out school when problems arise. The ancient vampire the Master threatens to break free and Buffy must contain him with the assistance of the school librarian, fellow classmates, and a stranger named Angel. Buffy is hesitant at first because being a slayer ruined her social life and got her kicked out of her previous school so she did not want to return to that at her new school. Ultimately, Buffy is drawn into her calling as a slayer as she heads to the schools hangout. Buffy runs into someone who warns her of “The Harvest” http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/The_Harvest that is coming. Later on the Master is woken by fellow vampires as the harvest starts and buffy must contain everything she can in order to save her friends and classmates. In the end of the episode things get stirred up at the cemetery and Buffy is ultimately threatened by Luke who proceeds to throw her in a coffin and is about to move in for the kill. This is a very exciting an interesting episode that counters the all the stereotypes of little blond girls who get killed in horror movies. Buffy wants to live a normal life and be social but her calling is to kill vampires, demons, and other supernatural forces. Another exciting episode in the series Buffy The Vampire Slayer is episode five, titled “Dracula vs Buffy.” This episode was directed by David Solomon and was released in September of 2000. At the start of the episode Buffy meets Dracula, Dracula’s character is used to examine the modern portrayal of vampires compared to how vampires were portrayed in past stories and film. The episode pushes limits and starts conversation among its viewers. As the episode progresses Buffy is in shock that Dracula is in fact real and not a mythical character from a story. As Buffy spends more and more time with Dracula she examines his traits and characteristics that set him aside from other vampires. Buffy specifically compares his physical traits to those of others. Yet as she examines him more and gets to know Dracula she discovers that not only is he physically different but mentally. Buffy is exposed to Dracula’s home which is a castle that he lives in with his three sisters, known as the weird sisters. As the episode progresses Dracula is commonly referred to as a celebrity which Buffy finds intriguing. Dracula exposes his ability to cast spells and influence others as he tries to lure in Buffy. The characters in the episode such as Giles hope to understand Dracula and his life, this is expressed by Gile stating “there is a great bit go myth about Dracula.” The director David Solomon makes a large point to its viewers to make Dracula’s character out to be very serious and secretive in order to challenge previously made traits about vampires. The female characters in the episode find Draculas mysterious trait to be seductive and fascinating. The episode concludes in Buffys staking Dracula knowing from his movies that he will later reappear. That being said after staking him Buffy wanders throughout the castle to learn more about him. The episode “Dracula vs. Buffy” is very important for the season because Buffy was about to learn more about herself as a person and as a vampire slayer. Characters * Willowhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_Rosenberg: Willow Rosenburg is one of the main characters of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and is also Buffy’s first friend at Sunnydale High School after transferring. In Episode 1, Welcome to Hellmouth, Willow was first introduced as a shy, timid teenager who let people treat her poorly. Buffy was being shown around campus when her tour guide, Cordelia, was rude to Willow, and Willow just let it happy. However, Buffy introduced herself after feeling sorry for the way she was treated and they became friends after she had asked her for academic help. In the first episode, when Willow was introduced, she encountered another vampire, and almost was killed, but Buffy had saved her life. This is how Willow discovered that Buffy is a Vampire Slayer. Throughout the show, Willow discovers that she has magic powers, and is very interested in witchcraft and uses magic very frequentlyhttp://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Willow_Rosenberg#Learning_magic. Another thing about Willow is that as the show goes on, she becomes a very different person than who she started out to be. She becomes a very empowered and strong woman after gaining confidence with the friends she made after meeting Buffy, and most importantly, discovering her witch abilitieshttp://www.buffyguide.com/episodes/hellmouth.shtml. Although she started out as just Buffy’s quiet friend, she quickly came out of her shell and became very independent. The discovery of her magical abilities was a slow process. At first, she was only able to do very miniscule tricks, such as covering up a pimple she had. At one point, Buffy had gone out of town, which is when Willow discovered an extent that her powers can go to. When she was faced with a frightening encounter with a spirit, her fear allowed her to cause a blackout in her neighborhood, which is when she realized how strong she can actually be if she tried. Buffy: Buffy Summers, a retired vampire slayer, moves to Sunnydale with her mother and transfers to Sunnydale High after being expelled for burning down a gymnasium (full of vampires) at her last high school. She immediately befriends Willow and Xander at school in the pilot episode "Welcome to Hellmouth", who find out right away after a very close call encounter with some vampires that Buffy is a vampire slayer. They become her best friends who support her and help her through her supernatural trials throughout the series. She also meets the new school librarian Rupert Giles in the pilot who is assigned to be her "watcher" or in other words her guide and advisor to all things supernatural. He also quickly becomes her dear friend, a relationship that sometimes even resembles a father figure. Buffy is a strong willed, bold, brave, and quick witted girl who speaks her mind and stands up for what she believes in. She has superior strength, agility, and even a kind of slayer's sixth sense that allows her to sense vampires. Sometimes this causes her to have dreams that give her knowledge of future or present supernatural events. She comes to Sunnydale sick of vampire slaying because it has cost her to give up her school, friends, and to pick up and move her entire life before. She wants to put her messy past behind her, however, the universe has other plans for her. Buffy moved to Sunnydale in the midst of preparation for the Harvest, in which vampires will offer humans to The Master, who is trying to open the Hellmouth, a supernatural portal which Sunnydale High sits atop. He plans to exterminate humans and have vampires control and roam the Earth instead. Thrown in the middle of mystical mayhem, Buffy is forced to use the skills that come with being chosen by the universe as the one slayer of your generation to save her friends and fight the evil that has come to town. This sets the tone for the rest of the series, as she and her close friends fight off evil time and time again. References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_the_Hellmouth http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452716/ NcRSSS31553 (talk) 02:23, April 5, 2017 (UTC) Category:Characters __NEWSECTIONLINK__ __FORCETOC__